YuGiOh! 5D's: Brilliant Colors
by Bring
Summary: What is the White Dragon? Who is this boy named Akira? What is his connection to Aki and why does he keep having dreams about her? The battle between light and dark begins anew. But all is not as it seems. *Rating will change later* YuseixAkixOC
1. Chapter 1: The Boy with the Chaos Deck

**Authors Note:** _This is a remake/revamp of my previous fanfic The White Dragon Saga. I'll be changing and adding certain story elements to make the overall story more enjoyable and a little bit faster-moving. I'll also be adapting the overall story better to the canon storyline and making the characters more dynamic. Anyways, hope you enjoy and please leave a review. Your comments matter._

**Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds: Brilliant Colors**

Opening Theme:

New World by Back-On

* * *

Chapter 1: The Boy with the Chaos Deck

"Now, Anteatereatingant, attack him directly!"

His opponent commands his giant insect monster to strike his life points directly. Seeing how as no monsters were currently on his side of the field, what his opponent was a natural reaction most duelists would make. However, that aggressive instinct would serve to be the downfall of the duelist.

"I activate my continuous trap, Depth Amulet!" When my opponent's monster declares an attack, by discarding a single card from my hand, I am able to negate the attack!"

Akira's face-down flips up and activates as he takes a single card from his hand and places it in the graveyard slot of the duel disk. A transparent barrier appears between Akira and his opponent's monster. The Anteatereatingant crashes into the barrier and is thrown back as its attack is deflected, leaving Akira untouched.

"Next, because it was discarded from my hand to my graveyard, I get to special summon Sillva, Warlord of Dark World (ATK 2300) from my graveyard onto my field!"

"What! No way!"

"Yes way." Akira removes his monster from his graveyard and places it onto his field. A dark vortex opens up on his side of the field and from it rises a silver fiendish warrior.

"Well then seeing how I can't attack you again this turn, I'll play two face-downs and end my turn…" The opponent duelist places two cards in his spell and trap zone to signify the end of his turn.

Akira shakes his head in disappointment as he draws his next card.

"That's too bad." Akira takes a card from his hand and plays it on his field, "I activate the spell card, Hand Destruction! Now each of us discards our entire hand and draws the same number of cards that we had."

"What the…! Just what is he thinking?" Akira's opponent questions such a tactic as he discards his hand and draws more cards from his deck. Then he realizes it.

"I activate the effects of the monsters I just discarded to the graveyard!" Akira points to his opponent's side of the field as a dark aura begins to spread from his duel disk. "First, I activate the effects of Gren, Tactician of Dark World. When this card is discarded from my hand to my graveyard, I get to destroy one spell or trap on the field. And it just so happens that I had two of them in my hand!"

Dark bullet's shoot from Akira's duel disk and destroy his opponent's face-down Mirror Force and Magic Cylinder.

"This is insane…" His opponent steps back in disbelief of the impressive move.

"Oh, but I'm not done just yet. Next I'm summoning my Fabled Raven (ATK 1300) in attack mode!" Akira manages to summon yet another monster to his field. This time, it's a masked winged fiend.

"Now Sillva, attack his Anteatereatingant! Destruction Saber!"

Akira's monster leaps high into the air and comes down on the giant insect with its blades. The blades empowered by the power of darkness easily cleave the insect in two and cause the monster to erupt in a giant explosive wave.

Akira: 4000

Kenyou: 3700

"Now Raven, attack his life point's directly!"

Akira's assault on his opponent doesn't stop. His second monster flies from behind the dark fiend and quickly closes the gap between the two fields. As it appears before its target, Kenyou crosses his arms in front of him to brace himself for the simulated impact. Akira's monster slashes at Kenyou with its claws and flies back as its target stumbles to find his footing.

Akira: 4000

Kenyou: 2400

"And finally, the finishing touch! I activate my face-down, Urgent Tuning!"

Akira's opponent jumps up in awe, "Synchro Summoning!" To think that his opponent could attack with such strategy and power in just one turn.

"That's right. I'm tuning my level 5 Sillva, Warlord of Dark World with my level 2 Fabled Raven!"

Akira's two monsters leap into the sky. The winged fiend turns into two rings of green light and surround Akira's dark world fiend. Sillva's image distorts and turns into a mere outline of its former self with a single line of five lights at the center.

"Fierce light guides the calm darkness. The opposing forces give birth to an ever changing balance and turn it into power. Synchro Shokan!" The darkness spreading from Akira's duel disk is separated and consumed by an intense light as the light of his two monsters merge into one. "Show yourself, Ancient Sacred Wyvern (ATK 2100)!"

A large white dragon descends upon the field with a mighty cry. Kenyou steps back at first sight but then smiles as he takes a closer look. His Life Points were currently at 2400 and Ancient Sacred Wyvern only had 2100 attack points. Even if Akira attacked again, there would still be a chance for him to come back on his next turn.

"Ancient Sacred Wyvern's effect activates!" Akira words dash his opponent's hope, "You see when my Life Points are higher than my opponent's, my Ancient Sacred Wyvern gains attack points equal to the difference. And sense my life is currently 4000 and yours is only 2400, that give my Wyvern…"

"3700 attack points…" Akira's opponent finally comes to the harsh reality that he has lost.

"Exactly. Now, Ancient Sacred Wyvern, end this! Holy Stream!"

The attack power of Akira's monster raises as it rears its head back and gathers energy in its jaws. The serpentine like monster snaps its head forward and launches all of the gathered energy upon it target in a single stream of raw power.

"Unbelievable! This guy is unreal!" A nearby spectator cries out in amazement.

The surrounding duelist look on in awe as the final match comes to its close. The Life Point meter of the defeated duelist plummets to zero and he too soon follows suit by dropping to his knees. His opponent, a mysterious young boy with brown hair and black and white clothes, stands victorious as he takes a deep sigh of relief.

"Geez, I thought that would never end…"

Akira: 4000

Kenyou: 0

The hologram of Akira's monster slowly vanishes and the light coming from his duel disk dies down as well.

"I don't believe this!" The MC shouts out with a burst of excitement and energy, "Not only has Akira managed to single-handedly defeat his opponent, but he managed to do it all in just two turns! Never before has such an event occurred in the final match of the Neo Domino City Tournament! But nevertheless, the winner of this tournament is none other than the unknown rookie duelist, Asamiya Akira!"

Akira scratches his head and nonchalantly tries to leave the arena. He removes the large duel disk and shoves it under his arm as walking while wearing it still felt a bit odd. After all, it had been awhile since he last dueled. The fact that he could even manage to find his old deck and duel disk was a miracle amongst the clutter and chaos of a teenage room. Akira almost broke his neck trying to rush out of his home and practically ran himself into near exhaustion trying to make the tournament on time.

"What a drag. All of that effort for nothing."

Akira exhales his brief depression as he wasn't able to come across what he was truly looking for. Though upon second thought, maybe it wasn't all bad since a nice chunk of pocket change did just fall into his lap. However, things such as money possessed little value to him at this point so despite being optimistic, he could not truly say he was satisfied.

"Tsk." Akira cracks a small smile as he pauses for a moment and reflects on the tournament, "Rookie huh?" Akira finds the little irony in the statement and thought to be somewhat comical. During his time at the Duel Academia he was know as an ace, the infamous Crimson Twilight. On the other hand, disappearing from the dueling scene for a handful of years would probably do that to anyone's reputation.

"Oh well, Akira. _Memento mori_." Akira reminds himself of his goal at hand and continues on to the front lobby of the stadium to collect his prize money and be on his way.

* * *

"So that's the guy you guys are after? You sure he's the right guy?"

Outside the stadium two people are talking while drinking some soda. One is a teenage boy with spiky blue hair and a red baseball cap leaning against the stadium wall. The other is a slightly older man with dark blonde hair and a scar across the ridge of his nose whom was resting on the seat of his D-Wheel.

"Yeah, that's him. No doubt about it this time." The blonde man states before taking another sip of his soda. "That guy is definitely the one who has the White Dragon sleeping inside of him. His growth and power as a duelist backs that up. However, why he hasn't awakened it yet is beyond me. What do you think, Tyson?"

"Beats me," the blue-haired boy instantly shrugs off the question as he downs the rest of his drink and tosses the can into a nearby trash can, "I told you what happens to the White Dragon is no longer a concern of mine. The Crimson Dragon and the five Signers are the only things on my mind right now. That and the ladies of course."

Tyson hops off of the wall and begins to leave his "friend" behind. He throws his hand up into the air and waves to the duelist without turning his back. After a few seconds, his image escapes from sight as he passes through the automated doors into the dueling stadium.

His friend, Bring, simply looks on at the stadium doors before looking away with a content smirk.

"That guy will never change. He's still ignorant of fate."

* * *

"ACHUUU!"

Aki sneezes for no apparent reason and then quickly hugs herself as he body briefly shivers. Yusei and the others look up from the work they were doing on the team's D-Wheels to see if anything was wrong with her.

"Aki-neechan, are you okay? It's not like you to get sick," Rua who is carrying a box nearby stops his work to check on the rose duelist.

"Sorry, Rua, everybody. For some reason I just got a weird chill."

Aki attempts to hide her embarrassment as she gets up and smiles despite the odd feeling she was getting.

* * *

Ending Theme:

Future Colors by Plastic Tree

* * *

Today's Key Card: Fabled Raven

This is a great card to have in any Dark World deck and is a highly useful tuner monster as it can increase it's level. In addition, it also works well with cards such as Necro Gardna who have abilities which can only be activated in the graveyard.


	2. Chapter 2: The Blue Haired Duelist

**Author's Note: **I'm still setting up the characters and the basic introduction to the plot. However, I'm happy with this because with this being a remake, I already know where I'm heading. Again, please review and I'll be sure to review something of yours too. Enjoy.

* * *

**Chapter 2: The Blue-Haired Duelist**

Akira lies down on a seat in the stadium main lobby. As he stares at the blinding fluorescent lights above, he reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out the small plastic card that served as the key to the account with his tournament winnings. He holds it above his face to block out the light and slowly begins to examine it. Akira didn't have anything really to spend the money on. If it were up to him he'd probably just waste all of the money on cards and junk food.

"Hmmm… Maybe I could get her a gift…" Akira quietly proposes the option to himself, "Though, I can't really say I would know what kind of gift she would like."

Turning his head, Akira lays his eyes on the set of widescreen monitors stationed in the center of the lobby. Beyond the jumbled crowd of duelists, Akira could see the image of a girl once known as the Black Rose Witch, Izayoi Aki. She was a rather attractive young woman who was just as skilled in Duel Monsters as she was beautiful. She's currently a member of Team 5Ds and it even looks like she has become a Turbo Duelist in the time they've been apart. Akira quickly found himself focusing more and more on Aki as he examined her in her bike-suit.

"Is that your girl?"

Akira frantically jumps up as he suddenly realizes the shameful thoughts running through his head and the face he must be making. As he comes crashing back down to earth, Akira notices a guy with blue hair standing in front of the seat he was laying on.

"Sorry man. Did I interrupt you or something?"

The carefree duelist scratches the back of his head and chuckles to himself joyfully. Akira could already tell that he was the type of guy who possessed a happy-go-lucky attitude towards life. As Akira tries to regain his composure, he notices the new face making an odd, sly, scheming, almost sadistic expression at him. This causes Akira to lose his concentration yet again.

"Look, is there something you want?" Akira briefly recalls the money he just won and stuffs the account card into his pocket, "If not then I'm afraid I can't talk long. I'm kind of in a hurry."

"Liar."

The blue-haired duelist responds automatically much to Akira's surprise. He takes a step back, crosses his arms, and discards his previous expression in favor of a skeptical grin.

"I can tell you're not really that good of a liar man. You say you're in a hurry, but you've been lying down on this seat practically since you won the tournament," The happy teen punctuates his observation with a brief laugh, "If you want me to buzz off then why don't you just say so?"

Akira is momentarily taken aback by the statement. He feels dumb for telling such a stupid lie, but he feels even worse for coming off as somewhat of a jerk. Sitting up on the lobby seat, Akira rubs his forehead and grumbles momentarily to himself. He'd grow accustomed to being left alone so dealing with people was somewhat unsettling for him.

"Sorry," Akira turns to the rather happy duelist and waves his hand slightly through the air, "My name's Asamiya Akira. I take it you were watching the tournament then? Were you in it?"

"Nah," the boy pounds his fist against his chest and posses proudly, "I've gotta give the little man a chance too ya know. If I'd have entered, my skills would completely shut the tournament down," The confident duelist lifts his fist from his chest and points two fingers at Akira, "By the way, the name's Tyson Gales. Commit it to memory."

Akira looks at Tyson in with a slight hint of confusion. He didn't know if he should call such an outspoken guy confident or just plain cocky. Once he realized the silly look of confusion on his face and the fact that Tyson was actually serious, Akira couldn't help but stifle a laugh.

"Hey man, why are you laughing all of the sudden. I thought that was pretty good."

Tyson drops his confident pose and throws up and eyebrow in response to Akira's sense of humor.

"Hey! Akira-senpai!"

The two turn in response to the voice calling out over the ruckus of gathered duelists. The source of the voice was a girl around their age with short black hair dressed in a red Duel Academia uniform. She joyfully runs up to the two duelists and upon stopping places he hands on her knees to catch her breath.

"Hi, Cali. Did you run all the way here from the Duel Academia?" Akira looks at the girl who is desperately trying to take in all the air she can. Akira then turns his head slightly to the side to hide his 'you idiot' smile, "You're such a spaz. You know you could've just waited like normal people do."

"I am not a spaz!" Cali raises her head and objects the accusation, "I _wanted _to make it in time to see your match. But when I got here you where already done," Cali stands up and holds her hand to her mouth, cough, and clear her throat, "How else am I suppose to learn from you when you refuse to teach me?"

"I never said I was gonna be your teacher in the first place…" Akira turns to face his friend with a somewhat irritant expression.

Tyson scoots over beside Akira and slings his arm around his shoulder. The surprise almost causes Akira to fall over but the fact that Tyson pulled him in to whispering distance helped Akira maintain his footing.

"Hey man, what's up? You've got chicks running up to you. You've already got your sights set on that beauty from the TV so why don't you help a guy out?"

Tyson whispers into Akira's ear so that Cali can't hear them. Akira can't help but feel that the imaginative teen has misunderstood the situation; however, deep down he can't deny that he "had his eyes" on Aki.

"Oh yeah," Akira eases his way out of Tyson's half-headlock and looks back to the confused girl in front of them, "Cali, this is my new…friend, Tyson Gales. He was watching my match earlier and decided to chat with me for a bit."

Akira introduces Tyson to Cali to which Tyson responds by placing his hands behind his head and giving Cali a cool grin. Cali looks back and forth between the two as it seemed off for Akira to have a friend she didn't know about. Cali lived relatively close to Akira and Akira wasn't really what one would call sociable. If Akira did hang out with any of his friends, chances would be that Cali would've seen them at least once. With this in mind, Cali places her hand on her chin and steps closer to Tyson. She steps so close in fact that Tyson has to step back for a moment.

"Hmmm…Tyson Gales huh? That name kind of rings a bell, but I can't say I've seen your face before."

Cali rubs her chin as she begins to examine Tyson's face and clothes more closely. Tyson's face begins to show his discomfort and Akira covers his face with the palm of his hand.

"Tyson Gales," Cali repeats the blue-haired duelist's name as she comes to a stop in front of him, "Wait…" Cali's eyes widen as if she had an epiphany. She looks at Tyson once again; this time with amazement filling her eyes, "You don't mean Tyson Gales, the second top-ranked duelist in the world, do you!"

Tyson takes a few steps back and rubs the back of his head as if he was ashamed. With a reaction like that, he didn't even have to answer the question.

"Eh…?" Akira utters his confusion.

* * *

**Fun Facts:**

Tyson's character is based off of Tyson from the anime Beyblade. In addition, his motives and values are similar to those of Kamina from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann while his playboy tendencies and sense of adventure are inspired by Zidane from Final Fantasy IX. Tyson is easily one of my favorite characters.

Cali is based off of the character of the same name from the Yu-Gi-Oh! Tag Force series. Cali wasn't originally in the plans for the original version of the story, but as the idea for her character grew, so did her importance and relevance to the plot.


	3. Chapter 3: Goals and Dreams

**Chapter 3: Goals and Dreams**

"She's pretty famous ya know," Tyson comments on Aki's growing popularity as he plops down on the grass making sure not to spill his can of soda, "A cute girl like that with a dark past, good dueling skills, and easy on the eyes to boot. I wouldn't mind taking her out myself."

Tyson smiles in joy as he lingers off into the thought. Cali who is sitting in the grass next to him gives him a questionable looks as she sips on her cold green tea. Akira who is putting his change into the vending machine five feet away simply tries to ignore the comment. Even though they've only known each other for a short period of time, Tyson seems to already know how to get under his skin. Izayoi Aki remained a favorite subject in this matter.

"And that body," Tyson raises his free hand up in the air and motions as if her where squeezing something, "She sure looked nice in that bikesuit. Don't you think so too, Akira?"

Tyson's sudden comment causes Akira to make a temporary lapse in judgment and hit the wrong button on the vending machine. Instead of getting the double-shot iced coffee he wanted, the machine gave him a bottle of spring water.

"Damn…"

Akira curses his luck under his breath but reaches into the machine and takes the bottle anyway. He glances once over to the stadium building and then back over to Cali and Tyson; the latter of which seemed to be enjoying his thoughts as apparent by his hand gestures.

"So Tyson, are you really the second-top ranked duelist in the world?" Akira says the first thing he can think of to interrupt Tyson's thoughts.

Tyson pauses in the middle of his gesture and sits up to look back at Akira.

"Well yeah, but that's only because there's this one person who has always had better luck than me," Tyson removes his hat and scratches his head with an expression that suggested the idea really baffled him, "No matter how good I get or how strong I make my deck, she always seems to be able to beat me."

Tyson throws up his arms and lets out a loud grunt as he becomes frustrated by thinking about losing. He lets his body fall back onto the grass as Akira walks up and sits on the opposite side of him.

"Oh you must mean the Queen of Games," Cali re-enters the conversation. Dueling know-how seemed to be her main interest. Akira thinks to himself that she made the perfect student, "But shouldn't you be happy Tyson? After all, second in the world isn't something to be upset about. Besides, they tell call you the Prince of Games."

Akira chokes for a second as he finds himself catching a laugh as he tries to drink his water. Tyson picks up on the reason immediately and lets out a bit of a sigh.

"The title isn't what matters."

Cali and Akira didn't expect the reply given. One would think that a person like Tyson who competed at such a high level would want to be number one. But that wasn't the case. Tyson raises his arm straight into the air and points his finger towards the sky above. As he does, a peaceful smile creeps across his face throwing the other two off guard.

"It's my goal to be the best at everything I do. If I become the best I can be at any given thing but there's still someone above me then my best isn't good enough. I have to have to push myself to the limit simply because I believe that I deserve to be great."

Cali is struck deeply by Tyson's words but can only express it with a dumbfounded face. As Tyson continues to point towards the clouds, Cali finds herself directing her attention to them as well. Looking as the peaceful, drifting forms, Cali couldn't help but feel that she too wanted to have such a grand dream.

Akira on the other hand couldn't "feel" the impact of such a dream. While he quietly continued to sip on his drink, Akira could only glance at his two friends who were looking at the sky in content. He had no dreams. The things Akira wanted more than anything could only be accurately described as desires. To relate such selfish, self-serving wants to fulfilling goals and dreams would be arrogant. During this moment in time, Akira once again confirmed the distance between him and regular people.

"So what's your dream in life, buddy?"

Tyson gently hits Akira on the shoulder to get his attention and snap him out of his thought. Akira blinks in confusion and can on spit out an awkward "um" as Cali and Tyson look at him expectantly.

"Come on man," Tyson sits up again and takes a swig of his soda, "Can't you see we're having a friendship moment here? You're not gonna go all manga protagonist angst on us and say you don't have a dream are ya?"

Tyson shoots Akira his trademark grin as he hits his shoulder a little harder. Akira raises and eyebrow as he thinks to himself how unique Tyson's way of speaking is. But seeing how Tyson is smiling and Cali is beginning to smile as well, Akira can't help but crack a smile too.

"Well, it's nothing big really. And it would only help to satisfy my own personal wants in the end. _But…,_" Akira folds out his arms and begins to speak in a slightly sarcastic tone, "I suppose my quote-on-quote dream is to protect a certain someone who is important to me."

Tyson and Cali look at Akira with raised eyebrows.

"You mean Aki-chan right?" Tyson says the first thing that comes to his mind.

Akira turns his head away from the questionable stares of the two and puts on an irritant, pouting look, "Cut it out will ya…"

Getting the response he was looking for, Tyson raises his head to the sky and laughs heartily. Cali looks at the two with a feeling that she is missing the punch-line to the joke. But as she continues to look at Akira pouting red face and Tyson's good-hearted laughter, Cali can't help but let out a chuckle which would soon turn into full-blown laughter as well.

Realizing the two were laughing at his expense, Akira turns his head slightly and looks at his friends from the corner of his eye. When he saw how happy they were, a small grin appeared on his face.

* * *

The setting sun bathes the sky in its warm hues. Most of the kids and younger citizens are beginning to head home for the night and more and more adult are preparing for the city's night life. Walking along the sidewalk is Akira, Cali, and Tyson who are briefly recapping what happened throughout the day. As they approach a four-way intersection, the trio comes to a stop as they prepare to go their separate ways.

"So is your house over in that direction, Tyson?" Cali happily asks her new friend.

"Yeah, it's not much but I live in a small house downtown near the card shop," Tyson scratches his cheek as he looks at the two and think, "You guys live in Tops? That's pretty high class."

"It's not much," Akira instantly replies, "It's pretty much only nice in name and can be a real hassle from time to time. If you want, some time you can come and see for yourself. Until then though, see you later."

Akira turns away from Cali and Tyson and begins to leave in the direction of his house. Tyson tilts his head and begins to ask why he was just suddenly leaving; however, he figured Akira must have had a decent reason.

"Geez, Akira, why are you always like that?" Cali puffs her cheeks somewhat peeved at Akira's behavior, "Sorry Tyson. Akira's a really nice guy but he can become really distance and aloof at times. But it really seems to have gotten bad recently."

Cali turns to face Tyson, reaches into her pocket, and pulls out a small sliver of paper. She hands it to Tyson who looks at it curiously before reluctantly taking it. Holding it up to his face, he realizes what's written on it is Cali's cell phone number.

"If you ever want to hang out or something, then just call okay. I'll make sure I let Akira know too."

Cali pats her new friend on the shoulder and turns to chase after Akira.

"Hey hold on," Tyson catches Cali before she can make her first step, "I'd feel bad if a pretty girl gave me her number and I didn't give her anything in return. I don't have any paper on me but…"

Cali turns to face Tyson again and looks at him with perplexed anticipation. Tyson reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out his deck. Cali jumps back and gasps, surprised at Tyson's generosity.

"Let's see," Tyson holds his deck in his two hands and spreads the cards out to see all of them, "Ah, this one should do it."

Tyson removes a single card from his deck and happily hands it to Cali. Cali, still amazed that such a high ranking duelist would give her a card from his deck, finds herself staring at the card before carefully taking it. Upon looking at the card and realizing what it was, Cali's shock intensified.

"Tyson, I can't take this!"

"Just take it," Tyson makes a shooing motion with his hand, "Call it a symbol of our new friendship."

Tyson reassures Cali that the exchange is okay with a warm smile. Cali's eyes light up with the purest form of joy as she throws herself at Tyson to wrap her arms around him and hug him, "Thank you so much! This is the coolest thing ever!"

"No problem," Tyson raises his head proudly.

Cali lets go of the generous youth and turns to be on her way. As Cali begins to run after Akira, she pauses briefly and turns to wave goodbye to Tyson. In return, Tyson waves goodbye to the academy student before she turns back around to catch up with her friend.

Feeling good about the events of the day, Tyson remains at the intersection for a moment and looks at the evening sky. He places his hands in his pockets and lets the warm breeze sweep over him as he begins to reflect on his thoughts.

"You know you're just making things more complicated for yourself."

Tyson snaps out of his tranquil trance and looks over his shoulder to the source of the voice. Behind him, leaning up against a building wall was a teenage girl with long black hair dressed in a loose-fitting black top which exposed her left shoulder and midriff and some blue jeans. Like Bring, she too was a familiar face to Tyson.

"What's up, Iori? I see you're as sneaky as ever," Tyson puts on a confident smile as he turns to face the path to his house and begins to walk past Iori.

"He confirmed it right? That he wants to protect that Signer, Izayoi Aki. Making friends with his is only going to contradict your goal."

Iori speaks coolly without moving a muscle. Tyson stops in his tracks to listen to Iori's words, having already walked two feet past the messenger. Neither one of them turned to face each other.

"He will find her, Tyson. And when he does, he'll become her shield; the Crimson Dragon's shield," Iori pauses briefly to let the words set in. Her line of sight drops lower to the ground as her expression saddens, "If you truly don't want anything to do with the White Dragon or us anymore, then I suggest you give up on your pursuit of the Crimson Dragon."

The seconds Iori spits out her final word, she hears a footstep and suddenly jumps up from the walk to see Tyson walking away. That action alone made the answer clear. Despite her effort to warn Tyson of the looming threat, he can only think of achieving his one true goal. In the end, she and her allies would ultimately have to come after her friend, and more than likely, kill him.

As Iori continues to look down the road at Tyson's shrinking image, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out her cell phone. On the display it read that she had one message waiting. Upon pressing the button to open the message, she notices the message is from Bring. It read, "Did he take the warning?" to which Iori had to reluctantly reply "No."

* * *

Akira possessed a natural tendency to look at the ground whenever he was in deep thought. When he first developed the habit it served as somewhat of a nuisance because he would always walk into thing. Now that he's gotten used to it he no longer rams into the side of buildings and most people don't even bother to ask what's wrong anymore.

"Aki… How long has it been?"

Akira asks a question of someone who is not there. He begins to question his own motives and even begins to accuse himself of having an obsession with the rose duelist. However, he quickly rules that out as he feels the desire to find her is more of a natural calling rather than a crush or an obsession.

It all started about a month ago. At night Akira would have vivid dreams of a world devoid of any human life except for him. At first Akira didn't think anything of it as he was used to being alone and the dream simply seemed to be a reflection of that. On the other hand, as time went on the dream kept recurring and becoming progressively worse. The buildings in the city streets began to decay and collapse around him. The sky became progressively darker until the world was almost devoid of all light and the several diverging paths of the city began to disappear. Eventually there was nothing left in the dark world except for him and a single winding road that went on forever.

The dream remained this way for about two weeks straight. Until one day a familiar face from his past intruded his desolate world, Izayoi Aki. Aki would always appear before Akira farther along the road near the horizon. Akira always tried to reach her back but, no matter how hard he ran, he would never get any closer to Aki than he initially was.

Now, recently, at the end of his dream, Aki's body would always disappear before his eyes as something in the darkness seizes her and consumes her. Her desperate, agonized cries for help always haunt Akira's night and thoughts causing him to have lost countless hours of sleep in the past days. But just last night, right before Aki's body vanished into the darkness once again, Aki called out his name.

"Akira!"

Akira jumps in a panic add the timely calling of his name. He finally realizes that he is back in the real world and is currently stopped at a crossing about a block from Tops. Turning to look behind him, Akira sees Cali running up to him from down the street. Seeing that it isn't Aki or someone in trouble causes Akira's nerves to calm and he sighs in relief.

As Cali begins to close the gap between them, Akira turns his attention to the sky his friends so carelessly looked at earlier that day. Looking at the wispy clouds float on by, Akira couldn't help but wonder if Aki was looking up at the sky too. Maybe he wanted it to be some sort of "romantic" coincidence on the outside. But on the inside, at that very moment, he simply hoped that the rose duelist was somewhere that she could peacefully look up at the sky.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Done with the exposition. Now onto the action! In the next chapter, find out what's in store for the Signers and what exactly the looming threat is that Iori was hinting at.

* * *

**Fun Facts:**

Akira actually is afraid of being alone. Even though he says he is used to being alone, he actually has a handful of good friends and hangs out in the city often.

Cali favorite hobby is reading books. Because she spends so much time in places like libraries, Cali often feels out of place when holding a conversation with outgoing people like Tyson.

When Tyson asks Akira if he's going to become an angst he is in a way breaking the fourth wall and referring to Akira's initial personality in the original version of the story.


End file.
